Detour #103: Hardknott Pass, Cumbria, UK
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Incredibly steep and probably more suited to sheep, the Hardknott Pass is a right of passage for drivers and cyclists, says Simon Heptinstall.
Innocent tourists visiting the impressive English Heritage site of Hardknott Fort need to take a Detour from the normal A and B-roads winding around England’s pretty Lake District National Park.
If they come from Eskdale in the west they may be a little shocked by the fairly steep road leading up to this remote Roman stronghold.
Or without checking, they may come the other way, from the east – and suffer one of Europe’s most heart-stopping journeys. This is the Hardknott Pass, described by The Guardian as ‘Britain’s most outrageous road’.
This notorious sequence of 1-in-3 switchbacks is far from the genteel giftshops and tearooms of Windermere in the wild west of the mountains. As the road begins to suddenly climb from a gentle lakeside, signs warn drivers: ‘Narrow road. Severe bends’ but by then it’s too late. There’s no alternative route. They’re about to face a sequence of ridiculous hairpins the width of a bridleway, a crumbling road surface, unguarded drops of hundreds of feet and gradients of up to 33 per cent.
My first taste of the Pass was a little like those naïve tourists. I was a passenger with a super-confident military team about to tackle England’s highest mountain, Scafell Pike, close to the Pass. Unaware, we hit the hairpins in the dark early hours of a stormy morning. Torrents of water gushed down the narrow track. The officer driving struggled to cope, his engine screaming as the wheels repeatedly lost traction.
We made it, amid a tempest of very special-force swear words. Later, the driver stayed in the car to recover while we scaled the peak. He took a different, longer route back.
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My next visit was with an elderly businessman in his luxurious pride and joy, a Jaguar XJ. I’d warned about the Hardknott ascent but was over-ruled on the return journey. It was a decent sunny day, of course his gleaming Jag would cope with a little Cumbrian slope.
Within a few seconds of cresting the brim of the pass he was clearly experiencing the sort of road he had never driven before. His wide, softly-sprung automatic limousine was completely inappropriate. Halfway down I thought there was going to be a coronary incident. Red-faced and gasping, he pulled onto a rocky verge to regain breath. We proceeded to the foot of the hill at single-figure miles per hour.
Then came the time I was staying in the nearby village of Boot and deliberately set out to tackle the Pass both down and up. Yes, at times it feels like you may topple over backwards but if your car is 100 per cent, the weather fine and you get your revs and gearchanges right, it’s completely possible for any driver. My tip: even when the road seems to rear up like a wave in front of you, don’t hesitate. A missed gear can have you rolling back off the carriageway. I found myself reaching to change down when I was already in first gear.
There’s a reason for Hardknott’s ‘Unsuitable for caravans’ signs. The hardest section is less than a couple of miles but in that stretch the average incline is 14 per cent and you gain 1,037ft. A few hairpins reach 25 per cent, with the final cliff reaching a piston-busting 33 per cent.
These are much steeper than most Alpine routes and exceed the extremes of Europe’s grand cycling tours. The fitness of the few elite cyclists who manage to scale the Pass was put into perspective by a recent Eurosport documentary. It followed a strict six-week expert training regime preparing an amateur cyclist to tackle Hardknott. To the programme-maker’s horror, he still failed to make it up.
I like the story of the ambitious Lake District Association of Hoteliers, which in the 1880s financed improvements to the road in the hope of encouraging tourist excursions by carriage. By 1891 the scheme was judged to be “not the success that was anticipated”.
It wasn’t until 1913 that the first motor vehicles drove over the pass, from the Eskdale side. Later the gradient was used to test tanks during World War II.
Today the route is an achievable challenge on a sunny day - but that’s rare in the West Cumbrian fells. An average day features horizontal rain, buffeting side winds and slippery surfaces. On a bad day the road is impassable.
The driver’s reward for all that steering and gear changing is access to an untouched mountain landscape of savage beauty. Discover waterfalls, sheer rock faces and sudden stunning views across the fells. Dramatic terrain soars into the clouds either side, as hardy sheep wander confidently across the road. They know that cars are the outsiders here.
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